Over in Japan, where personal firearms are rarer than anime that makes sense, Capcom cranks out a series of light-gun games under the Gun Survivor label, an appellation that would never, ever fly in the States, where the video-game industry dyes its light-guns neon green and Day-Glo orange and calls them "Justifier" and "Super Scope." Resident Evil: Dead Aim is the fourth entry in the GS series, the third to draw upon the Resident Evil mythos (Dino Crisis inspired the other), the third to make it to North America (Gun Survivor 2, based on RE Code: Veronica, was stranded across the Pacific), the second with light-gun support (which was yanked from the U.S. version of Resident Evil Survivor), and the first to be a damn good game -- despite being shorter than the journey of a Double Decker taco though one's digestive tract.

What fascinates most about Dead Aim is how it transforms Resident Evil's traditional third-person gameplay into a first-person/third-person combo, while speeding up and/or removing the sluggish elements of the series. Pull the GunCon 2's trigger to enter the first-person shooting mode; push down on the D-pad at the back of the barrel to instantly revert to third-person; press the GunCon 2's B button to open doors and pick up or use (most) items. Jumping into and out of the inventory screen is almost as fast. Except for the occasional need to access the inventory or map with the barrel buttons, you can play through the game one-handed, allowing you to smoke or pick your nose without a pause. (Dead Aim also supports standard controllers, and even USB mice, but playing this with a Dual Shock 2 is like playing Dance Dance Revolution with a Dual Shock 2 -- you're totally missing the point.)

Dead Aim's protagonist uses the standard RE tank-movement scheme of up/down to move forward/backward and left/right to turn, but he really moves, as the 3D engine hums along at 60 frames per second without sacrificing any details in the process. (It certainly helps that much of the environment is shrouded in shadow, with only the occasional dim lamp and your character's pocket flashlight to penetrate the darkness.) And, while most of the game's enemies come at you like the bumblin', stumblin' corpses that they are, Dead Aim's bosses are enormous and swift bastards that make you grateful (relatively speaking) for the leisurely assaults of the moaning undead.

My first of two beefs with Dead Aim is a minor one: it doesn't much seem to matter where you shoot a zombie, as it takes roughly the same number of shots to kill whether you're plugging it in the head, the torso, or the forearms. I know it would destroy the game balance to allow every zombie to be slain with a single shot from a handgun, but I would've been happy with a unique animation for the (re-)killing shot; exploding head, hollowed-out torso, arms a-flyin', et cetera. In a light-gun game, pinpoint accuracy should be rewarded with something special.

The second, and much more significant beef, is that Dead Aim is soooo short: four hours at very most for your first play-through, and only if you really suck. I was hoping beyond hope that Capcom would add more content to the final version, as I beat the preview version just a few months back, but alas. After beating it once, the game allows you to play through most of it a second time as the hot-chick supporting character, but the gameplay is identical, so what's the point? Dead Aim's cruise-ship environment, previously seen in Resident Evil Gaiden for the Game Boy Color, is just begging to be filled with puzzles and plot, but most of that potential is sadly wasted. Perhaps Capcom's agreement with Nintendo prevented the former from turning Dead Aim into a legitimate, full-length Resident Evil, and if so, it's too damn bad.

Rumor has it that there are zombies in this game.
As previously mentioned, Dead Aim's engine is buttah-smooth, although it does suffer the rare slowdown seizure when the screen is chock-full o' zombies. (Dead Aim wisely doesn't even bother with the series' trademark awkward attempts at suspense, instead placing a focus on the action.) There's very little music (background noise is supplied by the ship's droning engine), average sound effects, and the usual horrendous voice acting; the most shocking moment in any Resident Evil game would be if a character read his or her dialogue with genuine emotion.

Dead Aim is a very cool combination of gameplay elements, and the most intriguing light-gun title for a home console since Elemental Gearbolt (anyone remember that one?) It suffers from such a limited lifespan that only hardcore collectors and RE maniacs would be advised to purchase the game instead of making it a Blockbuster night. But hey, at least it's a much more entertaining rental than Just Married.